I'm trying tons of new vegetables, and hope to start many threads about them in time. But one I'm very excited about is Chayote. Never heard of it, found some in a store and looked it up. Apparently it should be easy to grow and fruit prolifically, and the leaves, fruit, seed, and even root are all edible! I looked up various recipes to try it, but in the end I'm glad I just tried it raw, because it was delicious! Very crunchy, similar to jicama or a sweet cucumber.

Weirdly, you can only grow it by planting an entire fruit/squash in the ground. So I had to go back to the store and get more after I'd tasted it so I would have some to plant.

It has many health benefits, and I'm excited to try growing it!

Anyone else already growing chayote?

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Mine grew fine for a while, but was eaten to the ground and died. I have not had a lot of luck with the fruit from the supermarket here, but the ones I got from the farmers markets in homestead grew. Iguanas love the leaves, deer love the whole thing (not a problem for you). They do get HUGE though so plant accordingly.Report to moderator Logged-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------LivingParadise

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Re: Chayote« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2016, 10:34:44 PM »

Thanks for the heads up on the iguanas. I do not have the Key Deer issue, for which I'm grateful. I planted 4 of them. I saw them somewhere online as needing to be planted with the squash only partially in the ground, so that's how I did it. Is that also how you planted them? Do they need a lot of water or attention to get started? Do you recall how long it took to get some leaves?

I planted them with a little bit of the top sticking up, mine had sprouted before I bought it so I don't know how long till it will sprout. I just watered mine with the other plants a few times a week and it did fine.Report to moderator Logged---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------M8781

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Re: Chayote« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2016, 10:36:49 AM »

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Has anyone had any luck growing the white chayote? Usually sold at expensive organic farmers markets.And mine is kept in semi dry conditions but some of the vines (roots) still rot? What gives?It's grown in fabric pots 50/50 coarse perlite and generic "organic" aged compost (cow patty I guess) and watered very sparingly.Its typhoon season now so I've covered the entire trellis area with greenhouse poly to keep the water away from the roots.Everything went south a week later.I did cover it up before the rains started and watered even less like every other week instead of weekly?!!Report to moderator Logged-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------LivingParadise

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Re: Chayote« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2016, 10:26:47 PM »

My chayote experiment did not work out. Only 1 plant even started to sprout, and before it had even finished putting out its first leaf, it suddenly died. I will have to try again. I probably should have tried planting in the rainy season, so it could get wet without municipal water. Not sure if that was the problem though, since I am otherwise unfamiliar with the plant and its fruit...

I have both the white one and the green one. They are good as stir fries, but i find the white one has a much finer flavour. You must plant the fruit at the beginning of spring, once the temp. reaches the 70 s so that the vine establishes buy the beginning of summer.

I am in Spring, Texas at the moment, and I would plant it now. It does not need too much water, too much water and the vine will rot. I recently saw two other types, one with hairy proturbances, looks like a giant Rambutan and another with very dark green color. A friend of mine had got it from Northeast India.

Here we call the fresh new growth "dragon whisker vegetable" and is by far my all time favorite green! Fried dishes with new growth are AMAZING! not a huge fan of the fruit personally, but many are. i tried growing it in canada last year and it got about 2 feet before it got cold enough to shut everything down. but in the heat its borderline weedy, thankfully it only has 1 seed per fruit.

Yeah I too am growing it only for the baby shoots. I like to sauté it with lots of garlic and a little soy bean paste and soy sauce. It's very tender yet crunchy. Here in Hawaii our weather is nice and warm, but the older leaves on my vine are browning and wilting for some reason. They have little specks of what looks like mold almost. Not sure why

its probably because the leaves are getting wet. maybe something like most of the family, think zucchini, pumpkin etc they get serious fungal attacks when the leaves are wet. the older leaves here get the same, and just assumed it may be this.